“What happened in that mountain, Tieran? Because whatever terrible thing it was, it’s going to happen again if we don’t work together.”

He cracked one pained eye open and glared at her. You want to know what happened? I grew up there. I had a mate. We found each other as hatchlings, and were together for thirty years. Her name was Risa. She was blood red with the widest wingspan and bright green eyes. I loved her. He choked off on the word.

Kerrigan froze. “What happened?”

The Society took her for the tournament.

Kerrigan racked her brain for a Risa. She didn’t know any dragons with that name. That had to be before her time.

They took her, and she did her best. She had a dragon rider. She was supposed to come home after her year of training, and she never did. When I asked what happened to her, no one would tell me. I only found out years later that her rider had perished in an accident after the tournament. Their bond cleaved her in two. She died on the spot.

Kerrigan froze. Her heart went out to him.

She died for no reason but that stupid bond. I hate the bonds.

“Oh Tieran, I’m so sorry,” I said, tears coming to my eyes. “I had no idea. Why did you enter the tournament if you hated it all so much?”

You think I had a choice? I spent fifty years purposely botching the entrance exam. So that no one would force me into a bonding. But the Holy Mountain decided that I had grieved long enough and sent me to the tournament anyway. They said if I returned without a bond, then my life would be forfeit for my failure.

Kerrigan balked. “What? They’d kill you?”

Dragons are still animals, he ground out. They cull the weak.

“And after all of that, we still didn’t bond.”

Tieran nodded, turning his head away from her. I sometimes wonder if it didn’t work because I never wanted it to.

“But you can’t go back.”

No, I can’t.

“I can’t go back to my life either,” she told him. “It’s this or nothing.”

Then, we really are in this together.

“Until the end.”

He nodded and then dropped down next to her. She leaned her head against his side. Something had shifted between them. That old animosity burned off. It had never been personal for Tieran. It had been about the loss of the love of his life. And she couldn’t blame him for wanting to avoid the very place that had shattered his heart.

They stayed like that until the sun finally fell on the horizon, and then they got to work. Neither of them could be left behind. So, one way or another, there had to be a solution.

40

The Confession